Hegemon Watch

As of now, it appears that the United States started the current world financial crisis, while Europe, possibly, has ended it. If so, this would seem as good an occasion as any to declare the era of American hyperpower officially dead.

The Ponies are Back!

In a true sign that summer is on the way, the man who gives children horse and pony rides has returned to South Park. We went today with Braden and Griff. Despite the presence of huge numbers of tremendous bumblebees, The kids had a great time together at the playground...Charlotte and Braden pretended that they had died and were in "heaven", explaining that "space" was below the ground and the earth even further down. Griff and Nathaniel played baseball, though, as far as I could see, no actual ball was successfully hit. But the highlight of the trip was definitely the horses...

Grandma and Grandpa Parsons' Visit

Charles and Marjorie (as you can see from the post below) were here this past weekend, to celebrate Charles' 75th birthday. It was a great visit, though I am sure that both Charles and Marjorie will have sore throwing arms for days to come!

Natty and Grandpa Parsons Play Baseball with a Baker's Peel

Grandma and Grandpa Parsons are in town to celebrate Charles' 75th Birthday. They have spent much of their time playing ball with Nathaniel... Nathaniel, as you will see, does not always hit the ball. As Marjorie noticed, however, this does not seem to bother him. You just simply say "Strike one!" in a cheerful voice each time, and he's as happy as if he had hit it. We've posted a little video of Natty and Grandpa playing baseball.

Angola Prison Rodeo

On the one hand, the story about the annual Angola Prison Rodeo on Morning Edition today was sort of uplifting (the inmates were proud of their accomplishments, expressed their cultures through creating food for the rodeo, and clearly were having a rare moment of being treated with dignity). And the Angola officials interviewed seemed rather like benevolent captors. But somehow I came away from the story really, really depressed.

I think it was two things, both related to statements made by these officials, no-doubt well-intentioned. The first was one of the officials' (I'm assuming the head of the prison) statement that he considered himself to be the prisoners' "Daddy", since they never had one. Now, I'm sure that if that is really is attitude, the prisoners prefer it to many alternative attitudes he could assume, but, first, is it really true that all of the prisoners never had Daddys? And do even those many who no doubt lacked a strong paternal figure really want to identify themselves a a child of the prison? Do they owe gratitude and deference to prison officials and the guards who enforce their rules? If I were in prison, even for life, I think I would want to insist that I fundamentally belonged to some family other than the prison family. But maybe I'm wrong about that. The real problem, for me as a historian, is that he sounds very much like a plantation owner: they were always insisting that they were more fathers than owners to their slaves.

The second thing bothered me even more. The other official gave a brief history of Angola, and in the process lightly pointed out that it used to be a "slave breeding ground." Now, as a historian who has been working on race relations in the South for some time, I have no idea what she is talking about. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that attempts to force slaves to reproduce ever got past the level of forcing individual slaves to marry and live together, and treating slave women who failed to reproduce to the satisfaction of the master poorly. This is certainly bad enough, of course, but it is a very different thing from the image that "breeding grounds" evokes in the mind. If there were breeding grounds, historians really need to come to terms with that. If, however, Angola was not a breeding ground, as I very much suspect, I very much wonder if the myth of the breeding ground isn't the product of some sort of sick eroticization of the sexual violence of slavery on the part of the prison official, which can't be good.

Great Learn-to-Read Site

I know this blog gets, um, limited readership, but FWIW, I thought I'd link to the wonderful, free website that has been really helpful in Charlotte's reading.

Accomplishments

No real good picture to go with this, but thought I'd mention here that Charlotte is really making progress with her reading (she can sound out words, even some with vowel combinations, consonant combinations, or multiple syllables (when she sees a long word she says "let's chunk it!" and plunges right in) and Nathaniel is, as of this week, pretty much daytime potty-trained.

There is a little story about Nathaniel's potty-training... we have potty trained him sitting down to pee, since we knew that two year olds aren't tall enough to pee standing up. But of course, Nathaniel IS tall enough, and he knows that the big boys pee standing, so when there was a new teacher at his day care center, she asked him whether he sat or stood to pee and he said that he stood, and proceeded to do so. That was all fine and good, and once we figured out that he could in fact pee standing, we let him continue to do that. The next day, however, when it was time for him to have a bowel movement, he just turned around and stood with his back to the potty...

And I Still Haven't Mopped the Floor

I've told some of you this anecdote already... a few days ago, while I was making the kids breakfast, I noted aloud that it was probably about time to mop the kitchen floor, as it was looking pretty bad. Charlotte commented that she though we had mopped the floor pretty recently, meaning two or three weeks ago. I said "Well, Charlotte, most people mop the floor every week or so, so that it can always look clean." Charlotte kind of scrunched up her forehead and said "And do you want to be part of that group of people?" I can't put my finger on it exactly, but that seems unusually wise for a preschooler...

Charlotte's Playdate

Charlotte had quite a playdate over Easter Break with Taylor and Caroline. I have to say that this is a particularly formidable group of little girls. The playdate was not always harmonious, but it was always fascinating! (And yes, in case you are wondering, I am in fact a supermom who helped each of them make their own pizza)

The Easter Series: Easter Fashion (with Dad)

The Easter Series: Easter Fashion

The Easter Series: Easter Breakfast

The Easter Series: The Egg Hunt

Charlotte assisted Nathaniel in finding his share of the eggs!

The Easter Series: The Baskets

Charlotte went around excitedly informing people at church that she had received a chocolate bunny for Easter, as though perhaps they had never heard of such a thing. It was all very cute.

The Easter Series: Coloring the Eggs

There really is something fascinating about watching the little color tablets fizzle in the vinegar...

Thanny's Playdate

Many of you have heard about Thanny's play date last weekend with a neighbor boy a year older than him. It was all very exciting for Thanny, of course. The cutest part was when the two boys sat down to have some pudding together. They sat in silence for a while, then Thanny said, "At your house, do you use a napkin or a paper towel". The neighbor boy responded "napkin". A silent minute or two later Thanny took another stab at getting the conversation rolling: "at your house, do you use a fork or a spoon?" "Spoon" was the decisive response. It made for a great story and seemed harmless enough until dinner the next evening, when Thanny absolutely insisted upon trying to eat with a spoon. Anyway, this is the playdate... Thanny's friend (who really is a cute little guy) is making a face here, obviously, but I feel that it is a face that accurately reflects the spirit of the playdate.

Charlotte at Basketball Camp

Charlotte likes to dress up for basketball camp too, and I realized that I had not yet posted a pic of her doing so, so here's one from a little less than a month ago.

Charlotte Plans Her Snack

Charlotte here is contemplating what we will bring to school when it is our turn to provide a snack on Tuesday. Most of you already have heard the story of Taylor and her cutting each other's bangs... here is the result (after having been cleaned up a bit today at the Supercuts.

Jarhead

We had some trouble reaching our regular haircutter, and a particularly urgent need for cuts (see above post) so the kids made a desperate visit to the Supercut today. Unfortunately, Thanny somehow ended up with a quite military-looking buzz cut. I promised Mom I'd post a pic of it (Really, you don't get the full effect here... trust me, it's striking).

Putting the Camp in Basketball Camp

Charlotte and Nathaniel are playing a good deal of "basketball camp" these days. Basically, it usually begins with Charlotte inviting Nathaniel to go to basketball camp, then, after he enthusiastically assents, taking him upstairs to put on his "basketball clothes", which basically means whatever she wants him to wear, though it usually has some sort of sports-related element. Then they run around the house, sometimes with and sometimes without a ball of some sort. They play this several times a week, but I was particularly struck by yesterday's costume.

Radical History

The Pittsburgh area is quite possibly the retro capitol of North America. It's not just that the early sixties never died here: in many ways, they never quite arrived. In many cases, this is a Good Thing: witness these (very able and knowledgeable) public historians, for whom the New Left is clearly still far in the future.

Historians in the News

The Management would like to call your attention to this article. It's not as bad as it might have been: that's about as far as we're willing to go.

Traditional Governance

I thought I'd put up an actually substantive post. This article in the LA Times about the ambiguities of the Iranian regime has gotten some attention (e.g. Yglesias). The situation it describes is one where political participation is confined to a small minority of the population (they put it at c.15%: clerics, government officials, businessmen, etc.), but within that group authority is very dispersed. Even the nominal Supreme Leader seems to find it essentially impossible to impose needed economic reforms. To a historian of early modern Europe, this all sounds very familiar. That combination of limited coercive authority, powerful vested interests, and an ideology (largely external to the state itself) which allows insiders to criticize but sets very firm limits on debate is characteristic of the old regime: in fact, I would guess, of almost all pre-modern, traditional political orders. I suppose it's not surprising that an anti-modernist regime would recreate that kind of governance. Still, there's a reason why these forms gave way to more formalized and bureaucratic state structures with a largely internal legitimating ideology and a clear chain of command: they perform badly in a world of capitalist economics and industrialized warfare. Apparently, among other things, this paralysis is destroying the Iranian oil industry. Uncle Weber says the veleyat-e-taqlid has gotta go!